10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America.
What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term.
In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are routinely paroled.
There's still a lot of heavy handedness, and I question the justice of escalating sentencing, but the comments above create a false impression of the US justice system.